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Saturday, June 28, 2014

2 Hot Messes

Joining late in the game with Blythe for my favorite hot messes of
the week, it would be to good to be true to post
something and do it on time. Also I win the coolest and craziest award for Saturday night blogging about how my kids drive me nuts some days.

Today's post is brought to you by these two:

Resident tantrum throwers extraordinaire and professional sanity steelers to the max.

I mentioned in my last post that we had a doozie
of day last week and while I am not going to hash that entire day out
in detail (you are so very welcome) I will say that in hindsight it was definitely the case that the 2 culprits of most of the insanity were this new dynamic dramatic duo.

If
I ever complained about Naomi being hard or trying or difficult I am
heartily sorry and I take it all back. Future Naomi, just know that you
never ever gave me a run for my money like these to screaming machines.
They are adorable, sweet, and full of so much personality:

But oh my goodness can they tantrum.

I
have blogged before about Bernadette's aptitude in the tantrum throwing
department, and I have since deleted a few posts for fear of offending
her in the future. The gist with Bernadette is that I have no idea where
she learned to throw her tantrums but she is better at it than any
child I have ever met, and I have almost 30 nieces and nephews and have
done my fair of babysitting and nannying. She is the very best.

The crazy (read: scary) thing about Lucy is how clear it is that she
has been schooled in the art of tantruming by none other than the above
listed expert. Down to pitch of the scream and the flailing of the
limbs, she mimics Bernadette's tantrums perfectly, to a tee. This fact
makes me a little worried that all my wishing and hoping and thinking and praying that in-utero baby Joseph will be a bit calmer and spared the tantrum gene
due to the gender difference is completely unfounded since he will learn from the 2 best tantrumers this side of the Mississip.

The problem is that betwix
the hubs and myself we have really exhausted almost every piece of
advice from every person in the whole world and we still end up coming
to this conclusion: there is nothing we can do.

To negative? Ok, there are some helpful things: feeding them, not provoking them, giving them every little thing they want exactly when they want it (we all know that's really the only key).

Our
peak tantrum time frame is when I try to initiate nap time, which I
have done every day, for the entirety of each girls' life. I am a nap Nazi
of sorts and I am proud of it. That means that there is literally NEVER
a day that I don't make Lucy nap: she is 1, she still needs a nap. But
ever since Bernadette started not sleeping during the nap hour, my
attempts to initiate some "quiet rest time" with her end up in a crazy
tantrum every SINGLE day, which Lucy has witnessed and started imitating
every SINGLE day. It damn near breaks me most of the time and I have
now begun to deal with it by just letting Lucy her take a bottle to bed
with her and you can judge your heart out but it beats me receiving
multiple swift kicks to the pregnant abdomen and Lucy smashing her head
on more than one wall corner from the back arching. Bottle it is for
now. Bernadette's fits are often dealt with by bribing and empty threats, because I know how to parent.

And
so in conclusion, if you ever wanted to ruin someone's day by sending
your kids to their house to throw constant tantrums all day long but
your kid does not know how to throw one? Just send them here, they will
be trained with the best of the best and be A+ tantrum throwers for life, or your money back.

9 comments
:

They are so precious! They do not look like they would ever have a tantrum.

My two year old girl is working on training my 13 month old boy. She's pretty good at her tantrums, even gave a herself a bruised eye once. Little brother's are fairly avoidable right now, but I'm sure they'll be picking up speed before long.

On the bright side, they are super cute! Lucy looks so much older now.But I feel you. I laugh soooo much now because when my oldest was a toddler, I thought he was a difficult child. Then I had my second child. He is a total madman. He's learned a few things about tantrums from his brother (who seems to be - at least to me - going through a difficult phase right now himself), but he could teach a master class in the art of the temper tantrum. And like you, I'm at a loss, especially being 33 weeks pregnant, because I physically can't control him during a tantrum (I honestly feel like he is going to put me into early labor because hello Braxton Hicks with any exertion) but I fear to leave him alone but he is the destructive type, and he won't stay put. Sigh.It'll get better when the baby's born, right? ....Right?

Hahahahaha yes yes yes - down to the pitch and flailing of the limbs. I honestly can't tell the difference between Clare and Emeric's tantrums. If they are in the other room, it's anyone's guess as to who it is - they sound identical.

I can't lie, I physically had anxiety reading this. And my kids are 10,11,14,16. That age is so the double edged sword...so freakin' cute and so freakin' UNREASONABLE. I absolutely sucked at parenting during those times. Truly. Sucked. I say it's God's sense of humor to give us 4 children when I am so easily overstimulated by noise and chaos.....that said, take this with a grain of salt.....when ours were outgrowing naps far too early by my nap standards (also a nap lover for many reasons) I instituted a quiet time by using a clock and teaching how to recognize the time to come out of the room (little hand on 2, big hand on 12 or using digital clocks....whatever) and let them play quietly, not to come out until the clock said. Took some time and we made a little game of it, but often they'd fall asleep in there and we all had much needed downtime, regardless of actual napping. So. Grain. Salt. Good luck and many prayers!!!

Thank you so much for this comment, so sorry it's taken so long to reply! It was so helpful to read in the trenches, and so good know that I am *hopefully* not screwing them up :) And we are right there with the digital clocks, it is sort of working, but I will not stop trying!!!

I am a lurker on your blog who just wanted to say I love your writing style, your sense of humor, and that you are a HAHN! How cool! Also my youngest (11) was a champion tantrum thrower, it eventually goes away I promise! We had friends with younger kids visiting yesterday and they kept saying what a good role model our son is for their kids.

I just commented and it disappeared, if it shows up twice sorry! I read your blog and pretty much never comment, but I wanted to say I love your writing style, your sense of humor and the fact that you are a HAHN...how cool! My youngest (11) was a champion tantrum thrower. It goes away I promise! We had friends with younger kids visiting this weekend and they kept saying how our son is such a good role model for their kids.

Oh, I hear you. I finally had to tell the baby he didn't have to nap anymore. He's hears the twins playing downstairs and REFUSES to lay down without a huge, screaming, make-you-wish-you-weren't-born tantrum. So now I just throw my hands in the air and send them all outside to play. The only upside is he's ready for bed at 7-7:30pm without a fight. Hang in there. I wish I had advice, but I really just try to herd them all and keep everyone in one piece before my husband gets home.

I know you posted this a long time ago but I just got around to reading it but my older sister and I were the worst tantrum throwers ever!! I cringe and pray I never meet another child as awful as I was. I threw tantrums about sooo many things! and they were bad but I turned out all right so there is hope!